Coffins
by severedstringss
Summary: How do you soften the thought of carrying coffins? Natasha goes to comfort Steve after Peggy's funeral. Cap starts losing hope and Natasha does her best to help him but she's out of place in this situation. My view of what could have happened in Civil War after the funeral. Romanogers ;)


**Coffins**

 **Disclaimer:** I OWN THE ENTIRE MCU! MUA HA HA! (If you couldn't tell, that was sarcasm. No. I don't own anything.)

 **Author's Notes:** I've been thinking about doing this fic for a while. It's kinda depressing but whatever :)

 **Pairing** : Steve and Natasha

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 _You said you'd stand even if this would all fall_

 _You're yearning, yielded when you hit the wall_

 _I shook your ears, tried to make you hear my call_

 _But you were long gone, no hope in a sunless dawn_

 _How do you soften the thought of carrying coffins?_

 _We were so alive, only to whither and die_

~Coffins by MisterWives

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Natasha crept her way through the hallway and found her way to his door. She hesitated before slipping in the passkey. She had acquired the key by… persuading a maid (and by "persuading" she means she knocked her out, put her in a janitor's closet, then stole the pass key). This seemed to be crossing some kind of line or something. _He needs someone,_ she thought and forced the key into the slot.

She walked in slowly. The small hotel room was completely dark except for the shafts of light streaming in from the tiny window. Steve was slumped against a wall near the desk, eyes red, bottle in hand. He hardly even looked at Natasha as she made her way over to him. She leaned against the wall and slid down to sit next to him.

"It's times like these when you wish you could get drunk, huh?" She asked, trying (and failing) to lighten the mood.

After a long silence, Steve finally choked out, "I lost her." Three simple words. Natasha had no clue what to say. She was trained to never show emotion or sympathy. It was hard for her to forget that as she tried to maneuver this delicate situation.

Before she could think of something- anything- to say, he whispered, "She was all I had left… and now she's gone."

The comment didn't really seem directed at Natasha; Steve seemed to be speaking to the void of nothingness that was reflected in his eyes. He kept his swollen eyes dazed off ahead of him. Natasha noticed that Steve's beautiful blue eyes, once so full of color, now looked drained, as if someone had sucked all the life from them.

Natasha didn't know what to do- it's not like she's ever been good at the whole emotions thing. She reached out and slipped her hand into his, interlacing her fingers with his, trying to comfort him in anyway she could.

"When I woke up, I thought everyone I knew was dead. It was as if every person on the planet was different… Then, I found out she was alive. I couldn't believe it. I didn't feel as alone anymore. That gave me enough hope to keep going, to become Captain America Again." Natasha watched a single tear trickle down his once flawless face. She realized that before the funeral, she had never seen Steve Rogers cry.

"Now that she's gone…" he attempted to continue. "It's like she was the last thing I had left from my old life, like I still had this fragile tether connecting me to my past and it just snapped. Before I was frozen, I was so… naive. I thought that Americans were innocent, that they needed to be protected. Now that I'm awake, I can see that most people _aren't_ innocent. People say things are better now, that people are more evolved, smarter, safer. It hasn't gotten _better_ , just more. There is more protection but there is more danger. There are more villains _because_ there are more heroes. People are smarter, but they're more manipulative. Nearly everyone I've trusted since I woke has lied to me: Sharon, Fury, everyone at SHIELD..."

"Me." They both knew she had lied to him, several times. "The world is darker now. That doesn't mean everyone is bad. No matter how terrible and effed up the world gets, there's always some good, _somewhere_. And you need to protect that small sliver of good before it disappears completely. For God's sake that's what makes you better than the rest of us shallow, selfish, sh*tty human beings. You're supposed to be the better one, the one that helps us!" It was ridiculous but he was making her angry. He was supposed to be the one comforting others, telling them to keep fighting. Not her. She was terrible at this. His old girlfriend and last person from his past just died and she was almost yelling at him. _I'm a horrible person_ , she thought. _Well, nothing's new, I guess._

"Why me? Why do I have to be the one stopping all the bad. We aren't even really stopping it are we? We're just delaying the inevitable," he said, looking into Natasha's eyes for the first time since she came in.

"Steve…" Natasha had no idea what to say. She had been having the same thoughts, even talked to Steve about it. He'd always been the one to make her feel better. "I know it hurts that Peggy's gone but this isn't you. You keep fighting." With her free hand, she reached up to force him to look at her again. "You will _always_ keep going."

Steve gave her a sad, smile and wiped away a tear that had somehow escaped without her notice. Natasha stared into his eyes; she could swear the color was coming back.

Without thinking, she pulled him in to kiss her. It felt so good. She'd wanted this for a long time, even if she had never admitted it to herself. Seconds (minutes?) later, alarm bells went off in her head. She immediately started to pull away. _Love is for children!_ Before she moved away completely, Steve pulled her in closer, deepening the kiss. Realizing this was wrong and things would just be awkward after Steve came to his senses. Then she noticed she was in his lap- _How did that happen?_ Delicately, she extracted herself from their tangled limbs.

"I'm sorry," she whispered and walked out of the hotel room, brushing a tear from her cheek.


End file.
